November and December 2004
Experiencing Mobile & Located Media– Developing a Descriptive Language

In November and December 2004, Constance Fleuriot and Jon Dovey organised a series of five seminar discussions aimed at refining the language we use to describe and understand our experience of pervasive, mobile & located media applications. We are exploring what the descriptive dimensions might be both in the public sphere and in specialist fields, as well as how resulting definitions might be useful in practical ways, for example in future search engines.

This research project arises from the perception that practitioners of mobile media are drawn from very many different fields, (eg HCI, Media production, Performance, Experience design) – each with their own discursive formations that might be useful starting points for the development of a vocabulary that enables people to discriminate and choose between different applications.

Each of the seminars started by using a Mobile Bristol project as an example of a located media ‘experience’, then discussing, defining and describing it in terms that could be used to generate sets of appropriate key words and search terms, and investigation of specialist vocabulary between artists and technicians. This approach also generated identification of recurrent themes around impact of context, location, authenticity, control (author/user), immersion, distance, temporality, repeated experience, quantifying experience, the impact of the ‘unreliability’ of technology – e.g. how do people rationalise unreliability?

Participation in the seminars was by invitation to practitioners and theorists working in the field; from Mobile Bristol (University of Bristol Dept of Computer Science, Hewlett Packard Research Labs), Bristol University Dept of Film, Television and Drama, Bath Spa University, Futurelab, University of the West of England, BBC.

The seminar format was consistent each week, in that the first hour was a chance for participants to (re) experience a particular Mobile Bristol project, followed by a 90 minute discussion. The first hour was optional, as many of the participants had already experienced the pieces. Each session was documented on paper and sound recorded, so that we were able to feedback notes at the beginning of the following session with a view to building a common vocabulary to describe and discuss mobile media forms.
It was agreed at the outset that all members of the sessions had equal use of the vocabulary developed, and that any publication would mention where the vocabulary had been generated.

All discussion sessions took place in Bristol. Applications that were used to start the discussions were: Riot, Moulinex, A Description Of This Place As If You Were Someone Else, Tag, Node Boat tour. The final, plenary session was an attempt to draw together the vocabulary used in the sessions, and to identify the emergent research questions for wider discussion.

We are in the process of writing the results of the seminar series in more detail for publication and use in workshops as design principles for working with locative media. Preliminary results can be found on the Mobile Bristol website under the Presentations section. These were presented at PLAN:ICA in Feb 2005 (see open-plan.org for more information on the event)

Biographies
Constance Fleuriot is currently a Research Associate at Bristol University, working on the Lifestyle and Experience design strand of the Mobile Bristol Project (www.mobilebristol.com). She coordinates 'A New Sense of Place?', as well as being involved in developing links between Mobile Bristol and other organisations. Her overall interest is in how to develop Mobile Bristol as a creative space for personal engagement with an urban environment.
Along with Jon Dovey, she is member of 'Ship of Fools' artists group www.sof.org.uk

Jon Dovey is a TV and Video Producer, as well as a writer, and Reader in Department of Film and Drama, University of Bristol. He is co-founder of Gorilla Tapes and writer of the prize winning Heartfield film ZYGOSIS. He contributed to the TOYBOX CD ROM produced by Video Positive in Spring ‘95 and produced Media~Myth & Mania for Silver to Silicon. Jon was formerly Principal Lecturer in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of the West of England.
Publications include: Fractal Dreams: New Media in Social Context by Jon Dovey, Lawrence & Wishart (1996), Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television, London:Pluto Press (2000), New Media by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly, Routledge (2002)
Constance Fleuriot: constance@mobilebristol.com
Jon Dovey: Jonathan.Dovey@bristol.ac.uk

Experiencing Mobile Media: Bristol Seminars (77 Kb) Dovey, J and Fleuriot, C presented at PLAN:ICA February 2005 (open-plan.org)